RALEIGH -- Organized crime has a new source of funding that's rooted partly in North Carolina. Cigarette trafficking is now grossing in over 5.5 billion dollars annually from black market trades.

While cigarette trafficking is a multi-national industry, it is especially strong right here at home. However, with limited police force and lacking legislation regarding the issue, it's difficult to get a handle of. Rich Marianos, a retired A-T-F agent, says that the new tobacco road stretches all across the Eastern Seaboard.

"The black market that we are concentrating on with the new tobacco road is all along I-95. From Miami, through the Carolinas, from Virginia into New York, even as far as Maine."

Marianos says that a pack of cigarettes bought in North Carolina and sold in New York equates to nearly ten times the profit because sales taxes are much higher in the northeast.